Sighting Location

The latitude and longitude presented here is an approximation to protect the reporters identity

Sighting Specifics

Viewing Distance

501 Feet - 1 Mile

Sighting Duration

Undisclosed

Object Features

None

Object Flight Path

Path then hovering

Object Shape

Fireball

Weather Factors

Unknown

Sighting Details

My wife and I were driving southbound on Nave Dr, Novato, CA heading towards Safeway (cross Street Bel Marin Keys Blvd) when we both observed a bright orange glowing light straight in front of us, in the distance, about 50 degrees elevation. The sky was clear. At first, I thought it might be the light atop of Mt. Tamalpais, but my wife said no, it is too big, closer, and you cannot observe the top of the mountain from our vantage point. It seemed out of place, and my second thought was it must be a plane or helicopter. We pulled into the Safeway parking lot, got out of the car and while walking inside, I looked at the light again to take note that it was still in the sky about the same distance as before. We went inside and shopped for about 20 minutes at the most. We got back into our car, and headed south again on Nave Dr toward Marinwood. We saw what appeared to be the same light in the sky again, south of us, only it appeared to be closer and larger. While my wife drove, we asked each other, "what is that?". I rolled down the window to observe the light as we drove. My wife turned left onto Main Gate Road and into a parking lot on the right. We both got out of the car and observed the light in the distance, hovering. It looked closer than our first observation, but still high up and in the distance. It was high enough in the sky not to be obstructed by the surrounding hillsides. I was very excited and curious as I watched the light pulsate an orangish, red, yellow. We observed the light for about 45 seconds once we were out of the car. The light than abruptly disappeared, it seemed to shut off. I thought I saw a smaller light greyish colored object move west at the point where the bright light was, until I could see nothing but empty sky. I considered taking a cell phone photo of the light but did not want to be fussing with my phone and miss the opportunity to observe the light. I felt a sense of extreme curiosity and excitement to see this light. Having observed the ISS and other satellites on several occasions, I found this sighting to be very different.